“…the head of the Egyptian frog-god Kek superimposed over an image of his counterpart, the Egyptian snake god Kauket, in a seal inscribed with the Latin phrase ‘satis mentibus obvia,’ or, ‘resist closed minds.’ It’s complicated, but basically, through a series of meme-heavy coincidences involving 4chan’s use of ‘kek’ as a synonym for ‘lol,’4chan users profess to believe that Pepe (yes, the cartoon frog) is a reincarnation of Kek, an Egyptian frog-god who ruled over chaos and darkness, and that his coming is a sign that Donald Trump will save them all. Their satirical worship is what turned Pepe from a random internet meme into a racist and white nationalist meme symbol of hate. The ordeal understandably left [the original artist Matt] Furie outraged and upset, and he began a ‘take back Pepe’ campaign in October.”

I photographed the sticker and removed it from the street pole and will show this photo and the photos from earlier this year to the Potsdam police, as suggested by the Anti-Defamation League in NYC. For more information on racist and fascist symbols, see the ADL’s website Hate on Display: Hate Symbols Database.

In the fall of 2018, St. Lawrence University students in Dr. Brook Henkel’s German 103 class again incorporated contemporary street art stickers from Germany for a writing assignment called “Politische Plakate und Aufkleber in Deutschland” (similar to what his students did in the fall of 2017). As before, I introduced the assignment by giving a brief talk with slides describing the ubiquitous sticker culture in Berlin, focusing on topics such as urban development, gentrification, police authority, surveillance, and identity politics. Students then came to the gallery where I work to look at three sets of original, unused stickers from my collection:

34 political stickers that I picked up in May-June of 2017 at a squat/community resource center in Berlin called Infoladen Daneben;

58 political stickers that Oliver Baudach sent to me in May of 2018 from Berlin’s annual May Day festival and from other sources (Oli is the founder and director of Hatch Kingdom in Berlin, the world’s first and only sticker museum); and

Brook gave me three of the best examples of writing that his students did, which I’ll share below. In response to the assignment, he wrote:

“In all of my German language and culture classes, I try to give my students a sense of the robust culture of democratic politics and activism in Germany today. In a country still shaped by memories of fascist dictatorship under the Nazis and one-party socialist rule in the former GDR, Germans are far less likely than Americans to take for granted the benefits of a free, open, and democratic society. I’m enormously thankful to Cathy Tedford, Director of the Brush Art Gallery, for the opportunity to bring this culture home, by allowing my students to engage with authentic cultural materials related to contemporary German politics and activism. In both the Fall 2017 and 2018 semesters, Cathy gave a presentation and organized a gallery visit for my Intermediate German students to learn about and study her extensive collection of German political stickers and street art. By looking through her collection, students encounter a range of themes, from environmentalism to feminism, anti-fascism, and the politics of immigration. This work challenges both their skills in German language as they work to read and understand the political messages, as well as their knowledge of contemporary German politics. They select several stickers on a single political theme and work to compose an essay in German that provides a cultural, political, and historical context for understanding the political stickers and then develops a close reading of their verbal and visual strategies. The assignment works wonderfully as an impetus for developing, at once, new cultural knowledge, skills in formal analysis, and more sophisticated writing in German. The students tend to recognize the considerable challenge of the assignment, but are always motivated to push their abilities, since the materials seem so politically relevant.”

He also wrote:

“The one change I think I will make for next year is to have them do some short readings in German in advance related to the main political topics represented by the stickers. It would be good to have them get a sense for the relevant vocabulary and political issues in advance. I still like the kind of exploration and ‘figuring things out’ that happens as the students go around and try to decipher the stickers––in a way, like they would if they were encountering them as street art in a German city. But I still see the need to dedicate a bit of class-time and assigned reading in advance to get them to engage on a deeper level.”

Brook Henkel’s writing assignment:

On Friday, December 1 in class, we will be meeting with the Director of the Brush Art Gallery Cathy Tedford to study her collection of German political stickers. Our goal for this class will be for each student to identify three stickers of interest that have a similar political theme (anti-fascism, feminism, gay rights, anti-racism, environmentalism, economics, migration, refugees, specific political figures, etc.). Based on your common interests with others in the class, you will begin working in pairs to discuss, translate, interpret, and analyze your chosen images.

Due next Friday, December 8, will be your fourth and final essay, which will describe the cultural and historical context for your selected images along with a close analysis of one of the political stickers. Your essay should have a three-paragraph format:

introduction of the political, historical, and/or cultural context in Germany referred to by the stickers (Here, you might need to do a little research online. When describing past events and conditions in Germany, pay attention to the proper verb tenses of “Imperfekt/Präteritum” and “Plusquamperfekt” and use each of the following conjunctions at least once: “als”, “nachdem”, “bevor”);

introduction and close formal analysis of one of the images; and

a discussion of all 3 images in general and commentary on their collective message and strategy as visually striking combinations of text and image.

Note: When you’ve completed either a full first draft or are working to polish a final draft, you are free to visit the German Writing Center in the Language Resource Center on the second floor of Carnegie Hall, Sundays through Thursdays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. An advanced student in German will be there to read your complete draft and help you identify and correct any grammatical or stylistic mistakes.

The sticker on the bottom is from a #WalkAway” campaign, created by “former liberal” Brandon Straka. According to Wikipedia, “The campaign’s stated goal was to ‘[encourage] others to walk away from the divisive left, but also [take] back the narrative from the liberal media about what it means to be a conservative in America.’ As of November 2018, the video had over 400,000 views on YouTube and 1 million on Facebook.” As of today, the video had 440K views on YouTube and 2.6M views on Facebook (I’m purposefully not linking to the videos).

After seeing a “white power” sticker in Potsdam, NY, recently, I found another weird sticker in Brooklyn that states “Q-Anon Is Real” or, with what looks like a Jewish Star of David on the lower left, more likely “Q-Anon Israel.” “Q,” like “Pepe the Frog” in the Potsdam sticker, is also linked to U.S. President Donald Trump. I remember seeing pictures of people at Trump rallies wearing “Q” T-shirts and holding “Q” signs.

According to The Washington Post, “Q” is “a government agent with top security clearance, waging war against the so-called deep state in service to the 45th president. ‘Q’ feeds disciples, or ‘bakers,’ scraps of intelligence, or ‘bread crumbs,’ that they scramble to bake into an understanding of the ‘storm’ — the community’s term, drawn from Trump’s cryptic reference last year to ‘the calm before the storm’ — for the president’s final conquest over elites, globalists and deep-state saboteurs.” Yipes!

The number 11:11 must signify something, but Wikipedia only states that numerologists and New Age philosophies believe that seeing the two numbers indicates “chance or coincidence and is an example of synchronicity.” Others say it signals “a spirit presence.” I’ve done a few different Google searches using “11:11” + “Israel,” “Judaism,” “Jews,” and “conspiracy” but I can’t figure out how the words and numbers in this sticker make sense.

]]>https://stickerkitty.com/2019/01/21/nyc-and-brooklyn-political-stickers-january-2019/feed/0Stickerkittyimg_6865img_6849“White Power” Stickers in Potsdam, NYhttps://stickerkitty.com/2019/01/09/white-power-stickers-in-potsdam-ny/
https://stickerkitty.com/2019/01/09/white-power-stickers-in-potsdam-ny/#commentsWed, 09 Jan 2019 20:10:55 +0000http://stickerkitty.com/?p=3104Last weekend, I found four copies of a “white power” sticker stuck on street poles and signs in a small town called Potsdam near where I live and work (a place that gets few stickers, if any). Potsdam and Canton, ten miles down the road, are both college towns in rural, northern New York with four universities and several thousands of students. Canton is the St. Lawrence County seat. Our closest big city is Ottawa, the capital of Canada. I call this part of the state purple after NY Congressional District 21 voted twice for Barack Obama in the U.S. Presidential elections in 2008 and 2012. The “North Country,” as it’s called, like other rural parts of the country, shifted to red in 2016 and voted for Donald Trump.

I recognized the “Pepe the Frog” image on the right fairly quickly (thanks, social media!), but the other two cartoon figures were new to me. I posted a photo of the sticker on Facebook and received several links to articles that have helped me make sense of the images (see bibliography below), as well as suggestions for follow-up. Two of the four stickers had already been defaced when my posse partner Bill and I found them. We defaced a third one by scratching it off with a car key and removed the fourth sticker intact.

After prompts from people in the community, I decided to contact the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and report what happened under the organization’s category of “witnessing a hate incident.” A staff member called me back to ask where exactly the stickers had been placed. He also said I should report the incident to the local authorities as suspicious activity involving the defacing of public property. He indicated that it would be useful to track the stickers geographically across the state to see if others show up.

According to the ADL’s extensive Hate on DisplayHate Symbols Database, “Pepe the Frog is a popular Internet meme used in a variety of contexts. In recent years, it has also been appropriated by white supremacists, particularly those from the ‘alt right,’ who use it in racist, anti-Semitic or other hateful contexts.” A website called Know Your Meme (KYM) also has a long list of examples of the original and early uses of Pepe the Frog as an Internet phenomenon and the more current appropriation of the cartoon image by right-wing groups to send hateful messages.

In the past few years, Pepe has been linked directly to Donald Trump (and to the French nationalist politician Marine Le Pen) on websites and platforms such as 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter. The KYM website states, for example, that “On October 13th, 2015, Donald Trump tweeted an illustration of Pepe as himself standing at a podium with the President of the United States Seal. Within 16 months, the post gathered upwards of 11,000 likes and 8,100 retweets.” In January 2016, Russia’s London-based embassy tweeted the news of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting with President-elect Trump with a Smug Pepe meme.

In the fall of 2016, after Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters “deplorables,” Donald Trump, Jr., posted an image of “The Deplorables” on Instagram. The image plays off Sylvester Stallone’s action movie The Expendables and depicts (with the help of Photoshop) Trump’s sons, Trump, Sr., and other Republican politicians Mike Pence, Ben Carson, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Christie, as well as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Breitbart commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, both of whom were banned from Twitter for inciting hateful rhetoric. Pepe the Frog is also depicted on the image (with Trump’s hair!).

Neither “Kek” nor “Pek” featured on the sticker are listed in the ADL database, but the ADL staff member said that the organization would update the list at some point and add the two cartoon figures. I can’t figure out what “77” on the sticker means, though the two numbers add up to 14. The ADL database states that “14” is “numerical shorthand for a popular white supremacist slogan known as the ‘14 Words’: ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’” (“88” is another example of a number symbol that stands for “HH” or “Heil Hitler.”)

I’m not going to go into a rabbit hole to make sense of Kek and Pek right now, but check out the articles by Quincy Frey and Jay Hathaway listed below and The Cult of Kek online. I did learn that “Kek” is 4chan slang for laughter or amusement, however, and “Pek” is the purple pigeon or as Nazis call it “trash dove.”

One last thing. I did a Google image search of the sticker and found that Amazon sells them online ($19.95 for 20). Yipes!

In 2018, activists declared July 17 as #PrimeDayofAction, a protest that coincides with Amazon’s “Prime Day” on July 16. It turns out that Amazon and other similar companies are being criticized for selling and profiting off of hateful racist and fascist merchandise. A 30-page report, called Delivering Hate: How Amazon’s Platforms are Used to Spread White Supremacy, Anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia, and How Amazon can Stop It, was created by the Partnership for Working Families and the Action Center on Race & the Economy, and states:

“This report is a contribution to a growing body of work identifying Amazon and other technology companies’ ties to hate organizations. We are indebted to the ongoing work of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to track hate organizations at Amazon and throughout our society. Color of Change has been tracking hate groups’ use of payment service providers and Amazon as a selling platform. You can see its work at http://www.bloodmoney.org. SumOfUs has been calling on Amazon to stop advertising on Breitbart News after many other major companies have done so. You can learn more at https://actions.sumofus.org/a/amazon-stop-investing-in-hate.

To identify hate symbols, this report relies on the ADL’s Hate Symbols Database. To identify hate groups and leaders in hate movements, including publishers and record labels, it relies on the Hate Map project of the SPLC. To identify racist bands making hate music, this report relies on ‘Music, Money and Hate,’ a 2014 report from the SPLC.”

I will write to Amazon and ask them to remove the alt-right stickers from their website. Stay tuned!

]]>https://stickerkitty.com/2019/01/09/white-power-stickers-in-potsdam-ny/feed/1Stickerkittyimg_6754screen shot 2019-01-07 at 2.15.01 pmStickerkitty is baaaack!https://stickerkitty.com/2018/12/13/stickerkitty-is-baaaack/
https://stickerkitty.com/2018/12/13/stickerkitty-is-baaaack/#respondThu, 13 Dec 2018 19:40:06 +0000http://stickerkitty.com/?p=3078Hola! Stickerkitty is baaack (yay!) after working for the past 15 months as a senior volunteer for NY-21 Congressional candidate Tedra Cobb. Tedra, a Democrat, didn’t win in November, but the experience was powerful in terms of grassroots community building—something that is sorely needed in the United States right now. Tedra ran an honest, clean campaign, but the numbers in this rural northern NY district favored Republicans by something like 40,000 votes. Aside from Tedra herself, who is incredible, one of the most remarkable aspects of her campaign was her base of 2,000 volunteers who carried petitions, hosted house parties and fundraisers, knocked on doors, made phone calls, wrote letters, etc. It was wonderful to be a part of it all, and Tedra created a very solid foundation for another run in 2020 to #BeatStefanik.

St. Lawrence University (SLU) also received an additional Consortium Development grant from the U.S. Council of Independent Colleges, as follows:

Executive summary

As a member of the U.S. Council of Independent Colleges Consortium on Digital Resources for Teaching and Research since 2015, St. Lawrence University received an additional Consortium Development Grant to further develop the Street Art Graphics digital image collection in JSTOR Forum (formerly Shared Shelf). The grant will extend a multi-year collaboration between SLU gallery director Catherine Tedford and Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum director/curator Oliver Baudach by bringing Baudach to the SLU campus in the spring of 2019 to add 322 street art stickers by female artists to the Street Art Graphics digital image collection.

In addition, the collection’s use in teaching undergraduates will be promoted through a “SLU Faculty Fellow” that will develop a model for course-based writing assignments. The grant will also support independent research and writing for the People’s History Archive, a group blog initiated by the gallery and SLU’s Global Studies department.

The Street Art Graphics digital archive is a unique resource; no other digital archive in the world features street art stickers or stickers by female artists, who are vastly under-represented anywhere, in such depth and breadth.

]]>https://stickerkitty.com/2018/12/13/stickerkitty-is-baaaack/feed/0StickerkittyTedraCobb-Logo-CircleStickers in the classroom: GER 103 – Politische Plakate und Aufkleber* in Deutschlandhttps://stickerkitty.com/2018/03/04/stickers-in-the-classroom-ger-103-politische-plakate-und-aufkleber-in-deutschland/
https://stickerkitty.com/2018/03/04/stickers-in-the-classroom-ger-103-politische-plakate-und-aufkleber-in-deutschland/#respondSun, 04 Mar 2018 20:56:28 +0000http://stickerkitty.com/?p=3062In the fall of 2017, I worked with a German professor at SLU, Brook Henkel, on a writing assignment for students in his Intermediate German 103 course. In preparation, I had scanned all of the political stickers that Oliver Baudach had given me in 2017 in order to keep the content as current as possible. (Oli, the founder and director of Hatch Kingdom, is my primary source for political stickers in Germany.)

This writing assignment was different than the assignments I did with Marina Llorente in 2012 and 2014 (+ Part I – annotating images) that focused on political stickers from Spain. This time, I had the students read two short essays on the Street Art Graphics digital archive and on Hatch Kingdom. Brook took the lead on the assignment, however, and said I could post the English version of it here on Stickerkitty:

On Friday, December 1, in class, we will be meeting with the Director of the Brush Art Gallery Cathy Tedford to study her collection of German political stickers. Our goal for this class will be for each student to identify three stickers of interest that have a similar political theme (anti-fascism, feminism, gay rights, anti-racism, environmentalism, economics, migration, refugees, specific political figures, etc.). Based on your common interests with others in the class, you will begin working in pairs to discuss, translate, interpret, and analyze your chosen images.

Due next Friday, December 8, will be your fourth and final essay, which will describe the cultural and historical context for your selected images along with a close analysis of one of the political stickers. Your essay should have a three paragraph format:

(1) Introduction of the political, historical, and/or cultural context in Germany referred to by the stickers (Here, you might need to do a little research online. When describing past events and conditions in Germany, pay attention to the proper verb tenses of “Imperfekt/Präteritum” and “Plusquamperfekt” and use each of the following conjunctions at least once: “als”, “nachdem”, “bevor”.)

(2) Introduction and close formal analysis of one of the images (see reverse side for a guide to writing about images in German)

(3) A discussion of all 3 images in general and commentary on their collective message and strategy as visually striking combinations of text and image.

Note: when you’ve completed either a full first draft or are working to polish a final draft, you are free to visit the German Writing Center in the Language Resource Center on the second floor of Carnegie Hall, Sundays through Thursdays 8:00-10:00 pm. An advanced student in German will be there to read your complete draft and help you identify and correct any grammatical or stylistic mistakes.

I went to the 2017 Montreal Anarchist Bookfair last May to look for stickers after having gone to fairs there for that purpose every year from 2012 to 2015 (but missing the one in 2016). The fairs feature book publishers, primarily, but some of the vendors also sell or give away stickers (or offer them as PWYW – pay what you will). Others participating in the fair usually include such groups as the Beehive Design Collective, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, and the Quebec Public Interest Research Group at Concordia. Several presentations, hands-on workshops, and an art exhibition are also part of every bookfair.

Over the last five years, I’ve seen certain themes emerge in terms of the stickers I collected: students’ rights, police brutality, immigration, and gender/sexuality, for example. Those themes were present again this year, but anti-colonialism also emerged as a theme in response to Canada’s celebration of the 375th “anniversary” of Montreal (see the city’s Alive 375 campaign). Here is the introduction to the program for the bookfair:

“The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair organizing collective acknowledges that we are on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka. The Kanien’kehá:ka are the keepers of the Eastern Door of the Haudenosaunee Conferederacy. The island called ‘Montreal’ is known as Tiot:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka, and it has historically been a meeting place for other indigenous nations, including the Algonquin peoples. The Anarchist Bookfair collective believes it’s not enough just to acknowledge the keepers of this land. We encourage everyone participating in the Bookfair to get informed and educated, and to actively resist colonialism and neo-colonialism in the many forms it takes, and in the diversity of forms that resistance can take, too.”

The text above echoes something I heard when I attended the Association of Canadian Archivists annual conference in 2015, during which several panel discussions began with someone saying, [we] “acknowledge this conference is taking place on traditional, unceded territory…”. Actually, as a side note, now that I’m doing research on this topic, I see that Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, has a Territory Acknowledgement that states:

“Acknowledging territory shows recognition of and respect for the host nation, the Omàmiwininìwag (Algonquin peoples, in the Algonquin language)…. This acknowledgement appropriately takes place at the commencement of conferences, workshops, public lectures, presentations and other events held on- or off-campus in the National Capital Region, hosted by Carleton University, particularly those pertaining to Indigenous communities, and diversity and inclusion-related events. For speaking engagements taking place outside the National Capital Region, determine which Indigenous territory you are presenting in and make an appropriate acknowledgement for that territory.”

Stickers this year from a group called Anti375 and their statement are shown below:

“This street art project aims to dismantle mainstream nationalist ideologies that feed xenophobia, false victimization of white Francophones and the erasure of the violent settler colonial structures. We are planning a series of anti-celebratory street interventions in response to the government’s call to commemorate the so-called founding of ‘Montreal’ in 1642 and ‘Canada’s’ 150th ‘anniversary.’

We view the 375th ‘anniversary’ as the legitimization of settler colonialism upon the land. The island of Montreal has many names in indigenous languages: Tiotia:ke, Mooniyaang, Moniak, Moriak… At the crossroads of many Indigenous territories like the Kanien’kehá:ka (south shore of St. Lawrence River) and Anishinaabe (north shore of St. Lawrence River), it was historically a strategic location for commerce. It is unceded territory, which means it was never surrendered or signed away in a treaty. It is imperative that we take action against settler colonial violence by acknowledging the experiences of the First Nations and Inuit, and support the return of the land to its original Indigenous caretakers. In addition, ‘Canada 150’ echoes the federal government’s refusal to address land claims, continuation of environmental racism and lack of adequate support for both missing and murdered Indigenous women and 2Spirit folks, as well as, discrimination against Indigenous children.

In light of continuing austerity cutbacks to health and education that are destroying the social fabric, we find it morally unjust to celebrate an ongoing capitalism in ‘Montréal.’ Furthermore, the rise of neo-fascist and Islamophobic nationalist groups in Quebec needs to be challenged. Urban areas in Quebec have seen more far-right stickers appear, and mosques have been vandalized countless times. We believe this visual presence is unacceptable hate speech. We have a responsibility to retaliate with counter-messages that go deeper than the liberal propaganda of multiculturalism of the Trudeau, Couillard and Coderre governments.”

Oliver Baudach is the founder and director of Hatch Kingdom, the world’s first and only museum devoted to stickers. He first started collecting stickers in the early 1980s as a young teenager in a small village called Speyer in southern Germany. He clearly remembers buying a wallet at the time from Skull Skates and finding “one of the best skull stickers [he had] ever seen.” He subsequently started collecting stickers related to skateboard culture, streetwear, and punk rock bands like the Misfits and the Ramones. In the 1990s, after graduating from high school, Oliver worked in streetwear shops where brands would use stickers to promote their new lines. He also actively collected stickers at concerts and through magazines and catalogues.

Even at an early age, Oliver started to collect two copies of each sticker design, knowing one could be shared to show others or to be put on display, and the other would be saved for a sticker archive. Hip hop, urban streetwear, and skateboarding were exploding in the United States and parts of Europe during the 1980s and ’90s, and many stickers from this time period are difficult, if not impossible to find today. Oliver eventually opened his own skateboard shop with a friend, which they ran together for three years.

In 2000, Oliver moved to Berlin, Germany, where he continued to work for urban streetwear and skateboard companies. His collection grew as he was able to travel to trade shows and acquire some of the best examples of stickers from major worldwide streetwear and skateboard companies. It was also in Berlin where Oliver first started to notice stickers by artists who “tagged” the streets with fanciful designs using a wide range of creative images and texts. Some artists chose to remain anonymous, while others made up street names, such as CBS (Cowboys Crew), Linda’s Ex, Stromausfall, and Tower.

Oliver’s idea for a museum devoted solely to stickers, the first of its kind in the world, originated in 2007. In April 2008, the Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum opened on Dirschauer Strasse in the artsy, alternative Berlin district of Friedrichshain. There, he divided the exhibition into themes based on skateboard culture, streetwear, and urban artists.

In 2012, Hatch Kingdom moved to Mitte in the center of Berlin, though in 2014 when rent became too expensive, the museum returned to Friedrichshain. Today, Hatch Kingdom, consisting of three galleries totaling 96 square meters, features approximately 4,500 framed stickers, stickers in display cases, and sticker-related books, packs, zines, and other ephemera.

In addition to the stickers on display at the museum, Oliver has organized several benefit exhibitions at Hatch Kingdom. The first, entitled Oversized and Underpriced, was presented in 2009 and consisted of 50 contemporary international street artists who created drawings, stencils, and silkscreen prints on enlarged “Hello-My-Name-Is” stickers. Proceeds from the sale of the artworks supported both the museum and the NGO Skateistan, the first skateboarding school for children in Afghanistan. Subsequent O&U exhibitions followed a similar model, but artists incorporated enlarged Deutsche Post and USPS Label 228 mailing labels as the basis for their designs. O&U exhibitions have also been presented in Hamburg (2009), Cologne (2010), the Stroke Art Fairs in Munich (2010 and 2012), and at the Superplan Gallery in Berlin (2013). The most recent Oversized and Underpriced exhibition, entitled OperationBaked Beans, featured 30 original artworks that were designed as labels to fit around 2.5 kg cans of baked beans (2016).

Sticker exhibitions organized or co-organized by Oliver have also been featured in galleries and alternative art spaces in Montréal, Canada; Paris, France; Frankfurt, Germany; and Moscow, Russia. With Catherine Tedford, (St. Lawrence University), Oliver co-curated the traveling exhibition Re-Writing the Streets: The International Language of Stickers, which was presented in the United States at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania (2015) and at St. Lawrence University in New York (2017). Future venues in the United States are being confirmed.

In Berlin, Oliver also curated an exhibition of stickers from his collection for Converse Shoes’ CONS Art Space (2014) and an exhibition of stencil art for SO36, one of the city’s most well-known alternative underground clubs (2015). A selection of Oliver’s collection was featured at the Urban Nation’s Project M11-Radius exhibition in February 2017 and will be featured when Urban Nation opens to the public formally in the fall of 2017.

Significance of the collection

Today, Oliver’s collection numbers close to 30,000 original, unused stickers from around the world. Rarely a day goes by without him receiving stickers in the mail or being dropped off by artists in person at the museum. The earliest sticker packs on display date to the late 1970s and feature two complete sets of skateboard-themed stickers from Donruss, a US-based chewing gum company. Early examples from the 1990s, when streetwear became so popular, include sticker collectibles from the clothing brands Fuct and Freshjive. Later stickers featured work by illustrators such as Sean Cliver for Supreme and by 9ème Concept, a French art and design collective that produced stickers for Reef, a surfboard and shoe company. Other highlights feature stickers from Carhartt, Stussy, The Hundreds, Volcom, and Mishka.

Rare, older original stickers from major urban artists include 123 Klan, 14Bolt, Banksy, Buff Monster, D*face, Dave, Dave Kinsey, Ekiem, Evoker, Flying Fortress, KAWS, Jeremy Fish, James Jarvis, London Police, Miss Van, RobotsWillKill, Visual Narcotics, and Zoltron. Berlin-based highlights include stickers by Haevi, Noel, Ping Pong, Prost, and Tower. The museum features a large Obey Giant collection dating from the 1990s to present day, including related ephemera, such as the edition of a Turkish lifestyle magazine called Bant.